J. F. Campbell Collection > Prophecies of the Brahan seer (Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche)

THE REV. ALEXANDER MACGREGOR, M.A,,
ON HIGHLAND SUPERSTITION,
DRUIDS, FAIRIES, "WITCHCRAFT, SECOND SIGHT,
HALLOWE'EN, SACRED WELLS, AND OTHER PECULIAR
PRACTICES AND BELIEFS,
WITH SEVERAL CURIOUS INSTANCES.
It is lamentable that mankind in all ages of the world
have been prone to the most degrading superstitions.
The enlightened ages of antiquity were no more ex-
empted from them than the most ignorant. We know
from the Bible how difficult it was to restrain the Jews
from the most idolatrous and superstitious observances,
and to confine them to the worship of the only living
and true God, This remarkable tendency of the
Hebrew nation was caused, in all likelihood, by their
sojourning for the long period of 400 years among the
Egyptians, whose system of religion was a mass of
idolatrous observances. They had a number of ideal
gods, to whom they erected temples of prodigious size
and architectural splendour. Their principal deities
were Osiris and Isis, whom they considered typical of
the sun and moon. But they had a great variety of
other deities, animals of all kinds — the ox, the bull
(hence the golden calf of the Hebrews), the dog, the
wolf, the hawk, the stork, the cat, and several other
creatures. They also adored their great river, the Nile,
personifying it in the crocodile, to which they erected